Design, Display and OS
The Nexus 5 is available in black and white color options. The black color handset looks more classy and blends well with the almost black front screen. The handset is light weight at 130 grams with battery, it is 8.89mm thick, breadth is 68.85mm and the length is 137.04mm.

The top and the bottom sides are slightly curved. The rear side is made of velvety material with matte finish, comfortable and soft to touch. The left / right sides, top and bottom are using the same material. In general it feels good, its light weight and gives a good grip. The rear side has got a big Nexus text written in the center (landscape mode) that kind of looks odd.

The power button is placed on the right, volume rockers on the left, 3.5mm audio jack on the top and single speaker (dual vents) with micro USB port at the bottom. There is mic at the bottom and another at the top next to the 3.5mm audio jack for noise cancellation. There is the micro SIM tray just under the power button.

Unfortunately there are no dedicated navigation buttons and the big space where you would usually find those buttons is empty. In fact in the center there is a colorful LED notification (check video). Since the dedicated navigation buttons are missing you will find the dedicated on screen buttons that will take up some space.

The HD IPS display screen is 4.95 inches supporting resolution 1920×1080 pixels. The actual resolution is 1776×1080 as part of the pixels is assigned for the on-screen navigation buttons. The touch is very smooth and responsive.

Memory and Storage
The LG Nexus 5 comes with 2GB RAM and optional 16GB or 32GB storage. For the review I have used the 32GB version. Of the 2GB RAM you get around 1.4GB free (on the first boot) and of the 32GB storage a single internal storage space of 26GB is allocated. There is no external card slot (the handset is completely sealed). OTG is not supported.

Gaming and entertainment
Since there is no external card support, I copied the data files of Modern Combat 4 and Asphalt 7 on the internal storage and the game got installed quickly with minimal download. I also tried the Asphalt 8 but during the install process it started downloading the full data – I did not have time for that.

The MC4 and the Asphalt 7 worked very well, am sure the Asphalt8 would have played exceptionally well.

The handset can play full HD videos with ease in fact I even tried playing a 4K video i.e. 2160×3840 pixels video at 23 fps that also worked pretty well. You can watch 4K videos on this handset, though you will get the same effect as 1080p.

8MP camera
The rear camera is 8MP with LED flash support and front camera is of 1.3MP resolution. The camera performance is very good in low light with flash and even without flash. The close up and long shots are very good and full HD video recording is also great though it takes some time focusing the subject in video recording mode.

Others
This handset supports 4G – I have not subscribed to 4G so could not test. 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth worked well. There is NFC too. The GPS is pretty good, got a lock in less than 10 seconds. Sound (speaker / in call speaker) is loud and clear. The speaker vents are placed at the bottom, so while playing games if you suddenly experience volume fluctuations you might actually be covering the speaker vents with your palm.

Battery
There is built in 2300 mAh battery that gives talk-time of up to 17 hours. I played the games for around 16 minutes the battery dropped by 9% and when running the benchmark apps for approx 22 minutes the battery dropped by 9%. The maximum temperature during the review was 44 degrees.

In general you can expect the battery life of about 4 to 5 hours when using heavy application / games using 100% CPU / GPU capabilities.

Verdict
The Google LG Nexus 5 is with the latest hardware and software. It has got a premium look and comes for a premium price. If you can afford, it is a good option, specially for the KitKat OS and any other new versions that may be released in the future. The Galaxy Note 2 is also available for around the same price, with Android 4.3 (not sure if it will get the KitKat update). Again depends on your usage, though some would want to go with the Stylus while others would want a more powerful handset – the Nexus 5.

Gogi Sir can u please tell me which phone will be better in the range 25000 to 35000 with latest android like 4.2 or above,good camera,memory slot,fhd display,memory slot,screen size 5 or above,more than 1 gb RAM,OTG supported and good battery…………

just go to settings then storage and change default storage to SD card and now ur new photos should be stored in external SD card… as far as issue of two folders in gallery is very easy to solve..just copy all the data of the folder which is in internal storage and paste it in the folder which is in the external SD card using file manager..now delete the empty folder from the internal storage..hence solved.!!

Hey gogi my xperia sp which is a mid ranger got a score of 22000 in antutu but why nexus 5 here got only 18000 ??? And nexus 4 after kitkat got around 15000 but the same specs are of xperia z which got a score of 23000 …
Why is it so can you please tell me

Well Gogi, The Main Problem of Nexus Which i know Comes up at the Starting installing of Android Kitkat 4.4 it was there with the new Device Dont know About This One! Did You Also Downloaded 365Mb of Android Kitkat File! or you got in the working condition!

there are issue i 9500 and even google nexus any thing that is powered with snapdragon and could be Tegra chip the problem is heat is main issue regarding the whole phone raise to 77c and is such waste switching of all the gadgets, that has come along with the major problem is the way heatsink is designed and that it feels like throwing handset in the garbage let alone be the OS .

Nice review as always. But I have a slightly off topic query. No matter how much I like these octa core powerhouses my budget doesnt allow me to. So could you please advise which one among these 3 you would buy for price 13~14k
1. MMX canvas Magnus
2. Xolo Q1000s
3. Lava Pro 30 (I know slightly costlier but looks are killer)

Well I saw this phone & used it almost 1 month back & I will say that Gogi has pinned perfectly. I am in love of Kitkat and cant find any other handset coming out with it. Even MMX not giving us upgrade.
Seems Google wants the monopoly for too long.

Ahmad, screen is corning gorilla glass 3 protected, it is stronger than the gorilla glass 2 but it can break depending on the impact. Do note the Gorilla glass are scratch resistant and will break in case heavy pressure is applied.

Waoo! Gogi Very Good Article! But i am Going to make a bad By Announcing that There will No Nexus Device launching from next Year! 2015 Google in a Conversation of Killing The Nexus Line up! Instead they want to concentrate on Motorolo Google Handset. They Want to end up their competition to others like samsung, HTC, Sony as they are partner with google! I want to Cry after that! :'(

What scares me, Amartya, is not that Google will stop Nexus but that they will stop making it available in countries with large populations like India and China. As we know, Google sell their Nexus products at very little profit per piece. The real motivation is popularizing Android. They may decide that in countries like India that is better achieved with a mid-range device costing under 20 k rather than a cutting edge device at 30 k(mainly because of taxes in India) In India, both the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 LTE are quite high because of taxes and Indians are typically unwilling to spend that amount of money. So, in the future, they may limit the Nexus to developed countries and we may end up with a mid-range cortex a7 quad-core product as the best thing available to us.

This benchmark in nexus 5 is minimal usage of cpu..
Other brands are cheating their benchmark by tweaking cpu and os
This is stock android and noncustomised
dont see antutu bcoz all brands sets benchmarks peak(highest usage) of cpu
While nexus 5 is set to use minimal cpu usage
all apps will work as fast as lg g2 can run

LOL! Its sad that you are buying phones based on benchmark scores! Nexus devices are not built to break these scores. Nexus 4 had low scores and so does Nexus 5, but look at their performances? They are the best! Too bad some people care only about benchmark scores and not the experience!

Hi pls check the sample images, street light in normal and in HDR mode. The focusing is a bit slow specially in video mode. You can compare the images with grand 2 images http://www.gogi.in/samsung-galaxy-grand-2-review.html (check the tiger images and the street light).

Gogi I don’t know why ur review are very good I think u think like normal person not like other reviewer who are so technical if u tell this is good buy I buying it for sure thanks for ur help bro ur are the real reviewer and I don’t complaint about reviewer

I don’t see any difference if you zoom in – the image of pink flower, the same fine details are visible on both. Night shot street light look more natural in HDR mode on Nexus 5. I forgot to add some sample images in Grand 2 am adding it in few minutes, you can then compare.